Business process modeling is intended to represent the real-world processes of an enterprise on paper or within a computer system. Business process modeling is typically performed to analyze and improve current enterprise processes. Managers and business analysts seeking to improve process efficiency and quality will often turn to business process modeling as a method to achieve the desired improvements. However, business process modeling can be time consuming and complex, especially when modeling a large enterprise.
In the 1990s, the vision of a process enterprise was introduced to achieve a holistic view of an enterprise, with business processes as the main instrument for organizing the operations of an enterprise. Process orientation meant viewing an organization as a network or system of business processes. The innumerable benefits of investing in business process techniques were demonstrated in efficiency, increased transparency, productivity, cost reduction, quality, faster results, standardization, and, above all, in the encouragement of innovation, leading to competitive advantage and client satisfaction.
Process orientation considered information technology (IT) as a key enabler and thus followed with the introduction of process aware information systems (PAIS) as means to support the knowledge workers in performing business processes. PAIS are driven by explicit process models, which enable a better understanding of business processes, facilitate communication between business analysts and IT experts and serve as a basis for the management and execution of business processes.
While PAIS has provided great benefits, the task of process modeling is still time consuming, complex, and typically requires a high level of technical and business process knowledge.